It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Thursday, December 29, 2022
Trends in ransomware attacks on hospitals, clinics, other health care delivery organizations
The annual number of ransomware attacks on health care delivery organizations more than doubled from 2016 to 2021, exposing the personal health information of nearly 42 million patients, according to the results of this study of 374 ransomware attacks. During the study period, ransomware attacks exposed larger quantities of personal health information and grew more likely to affect large organizations with multiple facilities. Current monitoring/reporting efforts provide limited information and could be expanded to potentially yield a more complete view of how this growing form of cybercrime affects the delivery of health care.
Authors: Hannah T. Neprash, Ph.D., of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, is the corresponding author.
Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.
INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC ASSOCIATION FOR PROBIOTICS AND PREBIOTICS
In past decades, the safety of many probiotics available to consumers was anchored in knowledge of their long history of safe consumption in humans. However, the range of probiotics is expanding to include non-traditional probiotic strains, which may bring health benefits but are not typically present in food sources and do not have a history of safe use.
A group of industry and government scientists convened under the auspices of the United States Pharmacopeia’s Probiotic Expert Panel recently set out to review current approaches to assessing the safety of probiotics from a scientific perspective, while also looking at what regulators currently require. The newly published paper summarizes scientific frameworks for assessing the safety of probiotics used in foods and dietary supplements, including the importance of comprehensive genomic characterization. The paper questions the value of animal testing for probiotics intended for human use. Further, the paper considers emerging technologies for safety testing as well as how manufacturing practices play an important role in the safety of the final product.
Recognizing that regulatory approaches to probiotic safety vary greatly around the world, the paper focuses on scientifically meaningful approaches for safety assessment. Risk tiers for probiotics are identified, based on available information on history of safe use. For strains of species recognized by authoritative bodies as having a sufficient history of safe use, and for which their genomes show no genes of concern, no additional testing is proposed. But if genes of concern are present or a history of safe use is lacking, additional testing is warranted. Safety of genetically modified probiotics or probiotics used as drugs was not addressed in this paper.
Dr. Mary Ellen Sanders, the Executive Science Officer for the International Scientific Association for Probiotics and Prebiotics (ISAPP), and a co-author of the paper, commented, “The current situation, with different countries having different criteria for showing safety of the same probiotic strain, is not ideal. This paper calls for a more harmonized regulatory approach to probiotic safety, based on sound scientific principles.”
Sanders says that while probiotics in foods and supplements are used widely and have a good safety record, establishing safety of innovative strains may require more extensive testing prior to marketing.
Amy Roe, Principal Toxicologist, Product Safety & Regulatory Affairs, The Procter & Gamble Company, led the writing effort. She says, “We hope that this review, which includes the use of modern technologies and approaches, will provide helpful recommendations for completing a comprehensive safety assessment of a probiotic.”
ISAPP is the international non-profit organization that works to advance the science of probiotics, prebiotics and related substances, such as synbiotics, postbiotics and fermented foods. Founded in 2002, ISAPP brings together global leading scientific experts and has shifted the paradigm for how probiotics and prebiotics are studied and understood.
USP is an independent, scientific non-profit organization whose purpose is to improve global health through public standards and related programs that help ensure the quality, safety and benefit of medicines, dietary supplements and foods.
People with perfectionist traits are more susceptible to burnout, according to new research, and it is not just work-related stress that is the cause.
Christmas is coming. We have all endured a global pandemic. There are coughs and colds everywhere. Bills are mounting. It is safe to say we are all exhausted – but when does tiredness tip into burnout?
An expert in mental health and mood disorders has been studying the phenomenon of burnout closely for several years. The extensive research has now been released in the first complete self-help guide to burnout.
The study highlights some of the warning signs of burnout and suggests that people who tend to be perfectionists are more likely to veer into burnout due to their own ‘unrelenting standards’.
What is burnout?
With the worries accompanying pandemic lockdowns, the pressures of inflation and other life stressors, many people are feeling at the end of their tether.
For some people, the cumulative effect of these prolonged periods of stress can result in burnout.
Unlike normal tiredness, the experts suggest burnout symptoms include constant exhaustion, emotional numbness and confusion at home or in the workplace.
Some conventional tools used to diagnose burnout focus on work-related stress, however mental health expert and lead author Professor Gordon Parker suggests that the impact is much more extensive.
Professor Parker said: “Most people consider burnout to be extreme tiredness, but in our studies we have found that the symptoms are much more wide-ranging.
“People struggling with burnout also suffer from cognitive dysfunction, sometimes known as ‘brain fog’ and disconnection from their friends and family, as well as the more typically-recognised reduced performance in work and tasks around the home.”
Who is most likely to burn out?
Burnout is widespread among high achievers in the workplace – but is becoming increasingly more prevalent in personal lives.
Professor Parker said: “Most people think that burnout is a work problem. Actually, we found that stress experienced at work or at home can set the wheels of burnout in motion.
“Our analyses indicated that burnout may also develop as a result of predisposing personality traits, especially perfectionism.
“People with perfectionistic traits are usually excellent workers, as they’re extremely reliable and conscientious. However, they’re also prone to burnout as they set unrealistic and unrelenting standards for their own performance, which are ultimately impossible to live up to.”
What can be done about it?
Professor Parker is the founder of the Black Dog Institute, which conducts research into mood disorders and works to remove the social stigmas around mental illness.
During his extensive research on burnout, and with decades of clinical work under his belt, he has determined how to best identify and manage it.
This research is outlined in a recently published book – Burnout: A Guide to Identifying Burnout and Pathways to Recovery.
Critically, the book offers a guide for navigating out of burnout, including identifying sources and coping strategies to minimise the impact of stress.
It contains new evidence-based tools for readers to work out for themselves whether they have burnout and generate a plan for recovery based on their personal situation.
Chapters help readers recognise their own burnout patterns and provide approaches to help them regain their passions and build their resilience.
FURTHER INFORMATION
Burnout: A Guide to Identifying Burnout and Pathways to Recovery
Professor Gordon Parker, AO, is a clinical psychiatrist and Scientia Professor of Psychiatry at the University of New South Wales, Sydney. He previously headed university and hospital departments and was founder of the Black Dog Institute. He was the recipient of the Australian Mental Health Prize in 2020.
Gabriela Tavella is a research officer at University of New South Wales and is completing a PhD on burnout.
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***** ENDS *****
Drivers of political violence in the United States
From the JPP&M special issue, "Marketing to prevent radicalization: Developing insights for policies"
A researcher from The Pennsylvania State University published a commentary in the Journal of Public Policy and Marketing that examines four key contemporary “drivers” of political violence in the United States: “toxic” political polarization; “toxic” identity-based ideologies; assaults on democratic norms; and disinformation and conspiracy theories. The article also discusses some ideas about how to curb the influence of these drivers and reduce political violence.
Political violence in the United States is fast becoming a key concern for experts, policymakers, and the public in the wake of the January 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol. Public opinion surveys show that nearly one third of Americans believe the use of political violence to be acceptable and a plurality of surveyed Americans express concern that widespread violent civil conflict is a real possibility in the future. What explains the growing acceptability, and potential occurrence, of political violence in U.S. political life?
The article proposes that there are four potential social phenomena, or “drivers,” that contribute to political violence in America today. It also examines the social science research that links each of these drivers to political violence.
The first is “toxic” political polarization. The supporters of the two U.S. political parties have become hostile, warring camps that have strong aversion toward one another. This level of extreme political polarization has been found by scholars to increase both support for political violence and the actual occurrence of political violence in the United States and in other democracies globally.
The second, “toxic” identity-based ideologies, involves the mainstreaming of formerly extremist political ideologies such as white nationalism and Christian nationalism. These ideologies are associated with increased acceptance of the use of political violence.
Third, liberal democratic norms, and the institutions that are based upon them, are being eroded in the United States. These norms and institutions are crucial for channeling grievances into legal, nonviolent democratic behaviors. As they weaken, political violence moves into the mainstream.
Finally, the U.S. information ecosystem, particularly social media, facilitates the dissemination of disinformation and conspiracy theories. Researchers have found that both disinformation and conspiratorial mindsets contribute to increased political violence and tolerance of political violence in democratic societies.
The article concludes by stating that all these drivers represent the mainstreaming of extremist politics with the potential of violence. To push them back into the margins of American politics, several potential reforms should be considered. These include political reforms associated with electoral politics as well as media and social media reforms.
About the Journal of Public Policy & Marketing
Journal of Public Policy & Marketing (JPP&M) is a forum for understanding the nexus of marketing and public policy, with each issue featuring a wide-range of topics including, but not limited to, ecology, ethics and social responsibility, nutrition and health, regulation and deregulation, security and privacy. https://www.ama.org/jppm
About the American Marketing Association (AMA)
As the largest chapter-based marketing association in the world, the AMA is trusted by marketing and sales professionals to help them discover what is coming next in the industry. The AMA has a community of local chapters in more than 70 cities and 350 college campuses throughout North America. The AMA is home to award-winning content, PCM® professional certification, premiere academic journals, and industry-leading training events and conferences. https://www.ama.org
Drivers of political violence in the United States
Water pollution, a major environmental contamination issue, solved by developing eco-friendly materials capable of purifying water at high speed with inexpensive raw materials!
DGIST (DAEGU GYEONGBUK INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY)
□ DGIST (President: Kuk Yang) Department of Energy Science and Engineering Professor Park Chi-Young's team successfully developed an 'atypical porous polymer material' that can completely remove phenolic organic contaminants in water at ultra-high speeds. The porous material developed this time can efficiently remove not only microplastics in the water but also very small-sized VOCs based on photothermal effect. At the same time, it is expected to be utilized as a high-efficiency adsorption material that can be commercialized in the future as it has cost competitiveness based on raw materials and enables solar-based water purification process.
□ Water pollution caused by the rapid development of the chemical industry is a representative problem in environmental pollution. Various water purification technologies and materials have been developed to solve this problem. Carbon-based porous materials using existing adsorption mechanisms have limitations in that the adsorption rate is slow and high thermal energy is required for recycling. Various materials have been developed to improve contaminant removal efficiency, but it has been difficult to develop materials that simultaneously satisfy excellent recyclability, high efficiency, economic efficiency of raw materials, and industrialization potential.
□ DGIST Department of Energy Science and Engineering Professor Park Chi-Young's team succeeded in synthesizing a porous polymer with excellent adsorption performance and photothermal properties by reacting an inexpensive and effective precursor. Also, an additional oxidation reaction was experimented on the polymer, and based on the results, a hydrophilic functional group was introduced to enable fast adsorption of micro-pollutants in the aquatic environment.
□ Furthermore, it was confirmed through experiments that the polymer developed by the research team does not require high thermal energy for recycling and can be used multiple times without loss of performance. The research team produced a water treatment membrane capable of evaporating water using solar energy as a driving force through the developed polymer’s ability to absorb light broadly and convert the absorbed light into heat. As a result, it was confirmed that the water treatment membrane coated with the oxidized polymer could purify phenolic contaminants through sunlight.
□ DGIST Department of Energy Science and Engineering Professor Park Chi-Young said, “The technology we developed here is an unrivaled water purification technology with the world’s highest purification efficiency, removing more than 99.9% of phenolic microplastics and VOC contaminants in water at ultra-high speeds. We expected that it will be a universal technology with high economic efficiency that can purify contaminated water and supply drinking water even in areas where there is no power supply.”
□ Meanwhile, this research was conducted with the support from the National Research Foundation of Korea's Leading Researcher Support Project and Nano and Material Technology Development Project, and Cho Wan-soo from the DGIST Department of Energy Science and Engineering, Choi Gyeong-hyeon in the master-doctoral combined program, and Lee Dong-joon in the master's program participated as the lead authors. The research results were selected and published as the cover paper for the 50th edition of ‘Advanced Materials,’ the most prestigious academic journal in the field of materials in 2022.
Supramolecular Engineering of Amorphous Porous Polymers for Rapid Adsorption of Micropollutants and Solar-Powered Volatile Organic Compounds Management
Statement by AERA president Rich Milner and executive director Felice J. Levine on the demeaning remarks by the chancellor of Purdue University Northwest
We are deeply disturbed by the demeaning and dehumanizing comments made by Thomas L. Keon, chancellor of Purdue University Northwest, during a winter commencement address on December 10. His remarks, in which he mocked Asian languages in a crude impression, came at a time when hate against individuals of Asian descent, Jewish heritage, and other historically marginalized groups is on the rise in the U.S.
The university’s response to this incident cannot be silence. Keon’s comments were harmful and convey a disrespect of communities of Asian descent that do not befit the leadership of higher education institutions. Universities, and their leaders, should serve as models for society. We call on Purdue University Northwest to respond appropriately to ensure that this offensive conduct is not minimized and not allowed to be swept aside. We must stand against messages and acts of belittlement and belligerence, even when made in “jest,” and work to support, elevate, and humanize all communities across the globe.
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About AERA The American Educational Research Association (AERA) is the largest national interdisciplinary research association devoted to the scientific study of education and learning. Founded in 1916, AERA advances knowledge about education, encourages scholarly inquiry related to education, and promotes the use of research to improve education and serve the public good. Find AERA on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
Bering Land Bridge formed surprisingly late during last ice age
Princeton scientists found that the Bering Land Bridge was flooded until 35,700 years ago, with its full emergence occurring only shortly before the migration of humans into the Americas.
IMAGE: THE SAMPLES WERE COLLECTED ON THE U.S. COAST GUARD ICEBREAKER POLAR SEA ON AN AMBITIOUS TRANS-ARCTIC EXPEDITION IN 1994.view more
CREDIT: US COAST GUARD
A new study shows that the Bering Land Bridge, the strip of land that once connected Asia to Alaska, emerged far later during the last ice age than previously thought.
The unexpected findings shorten the window of time that humans could have first migrated from Asia to the Americas across the Bering Land Bridge.
The findings also indicate that there may be a less direct relationship between climate and global ice volume than scientists had thought, casting into doubt some explanations for the chain of events that causes ice age cycles. The study was published on December 27 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“This result came totally out of left field,” said Jesse Farmer, postdoctoral researcher at Princeton University and co-lead author on the study. “As it turns out, our research into sediments from the bottom of the Arctic Ocean told us not only about past climate change but also one of the great migrations in human history."
Insight into ice age cycles
During the periodic ice ages over Earth’s history, global sea levels drop as more and more of Earth’s water becomes locked up in massive ice sheets. At the end of each ice age, as temperatures increase, ice sheets melt and sea levels rise. These ice age cycles repeat throughout the last 3 million years of Earth’s history, but their causes have been hard to pin down.
By reconstructing the history of the Arctic Ocean over the last 50,000 years, the researchers revealed that the growth of the ice sheets — and the resulting drop in sea level — occurred surprisingly quickly and much later in the last glacial cycle than previous studies had suggested.
“One implication is that ice sheets can change more rapidly than previously thought,” Farmer said.
During the last ice age’s peak of the last ice age, known as the Last Glacial Maximum, the low sea levels exposed a vast land area that extended between Siberia and Alaska known as Beringia, which included the Bering Land Bridge. In its place today is a passage of water known as the Bering Strait, which connects the Pacific and Arctic Oceans.
Based on records of estimated global temperature and sea level, scientists thought the Bering Land Bridge emerged around 70,000 years ago, long before the Last Glacial Maximum.
But the new data show that sea levels became low enough for the land bridge to appear only 35,700 years ago. This finding was particularly surprising because global temperatures were relatively stable at the time of the fall in sea level, raising questions about the correlation between temperature, sea level and ice volume.
“Remarkably, the data suggest that the ice sheets can change in response to more than just global climate,” Farmer said. For example, the change in ice volume may have been the direct result of changes in the intensity of sunlight that struck the ice surface over the summer.
“These findings appear to poke a hole in our current understanding of how past ice sheets interacted with the rest of the climate system, including the greenhouse effect,” said Daniel Sigman, Dusenbury Professor of Geological and Geophysical Sciences at Princeton University and Farmer’s postdoctoral advisor. “Our next goal is to extend this record further back in time to see if the same tendencies apply to other major ice sheet changes. The scientific community will be hungry for confirmation.”
New context for human migration
The timing of human migration into North America from Asia remains unresolved, but genetic studies tell us that ancestral Native American populations diverged from Asian populations about 36,000 years ago, the same time that Farmer and colleagues found that the Bering Land Bridge emerged.
“It’s generally believed that the land bridge was open for a while, and then humans crossed it at some point,” Sigman said. “But our new data suggest that the land bridge was not open, and as soon as it opened up, human populations made their way into North America.”
The finding raises questions about why humans decided to migrate as soon as the land bridge opened, and how humans made their way across the land bridge with no previous knowledge of the landscape.
The researchers noted that they need to be cautious when considering these implications, as the interpretation requires combining very different types of information, including the new data and the information of human geneticists and paleoanthropologists. They look forward to seeing how their results are built upon by these other scientific communities.
A window to the past
To reconstruct the history of the Bering Strait, Farmer and Sigman sought an ocean chemical fingerprint.
Pacific waters carry high concentrations of nitrogen molecules that have a distinct chemical composition, known as an isotope ratio. Today, waters from the Pacific Ocean travel northwards across the Bering Strait into the Arctic Ocean, carrying a traceable nitrogen isotope ratio.
By measuring nitrogen isotopes in sediments at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean, Farmer found that the fingerprint of Pacific Ocean nitrogen disappeared when the Bering Strait was closed during the peak of the last ice age, as expected.
But when Farmer continued his analyses further back in time – to about 50,000 years ago – he found that the Pacific nitrogen fingerprint returned far more recently than researchers had thought possible.
“When Jesse showed me his data, he didn't need to explain to me what had happened,” Sigman said. “It was too large of a change to be anything other than a previous opening of the Bering Strait.”
To understand the implications for global sea level, Farmer and Sigman collaborated with Tamara Pico, a sea level expert and professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at UC Santa Cruz, Princeton undergraduate Class of 2014, and co-lead author on the paper. Pico compared Farmer’s results with sea level models based on different scenarios for the growth of the ice sheets.
“When Jesse contacted me I was so excited,” Pico said. “A large part of my PhD thesis was focused on how fast global ice sheets grew leading into the Last Glacial Maximum, and much of my work suggests that they might have grown faster than previously thought.”
Farmer’s nitrogen analyses provided a new set of evidence to back up Pico’s research about sea levels during the last ice age.
“The exciting thing to me is that this provides a completely independent constraint on global sea level during this time period,” Pico said. “Some of the ice sheet histories that have been proposed differ by quite a lot, and we were able to look at what the predicted sea level would be at the Bering Strait and see which ones are consistent with the nitrogen data.”
“This study brought together experts in the Arctic Ocean, nitrogen cycling and global sea level. And the outcome has consequences not only for climate and sea level but also for human prehistory,” Farmer said. “One of the thrilling aspects of paleoclimate research is the opportunity to collaborate across such a broad range of subjects.”
“The Bering Strait was flooded 10,000 years before the Last Glacial Maximum,” by Jesse R. Farmer, Tamara Pico, Ona M. Underwood, Rebecca Cleveland Stout, Julie Granger, Thomas M. Cronin, François Fripiat, Alfredo Martínez-García, Gerald H. Haug, and Daniel M. Sigman appears in the current issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2206742119). The research was supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation (OCE-2054780 and OCE-2054757), the Tuttle and Phillips Funds of the Department of Geosciences, the Max Planck Society, and the USGS Climate Research and Development Program.
The Bering Strait was flooded 10,000 years before the Last Glacial Maximum
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
27-Dec-2022
Bering Land Bridge formed surprisingly late during last ice age, study finds
By reconstructing the sea level history of the Bering Strait, scientists found that the strait remained flooded until around 35,700 years ago, not long before humans began migrating into the Americas
A new study that reconstructs the history of sea level at the Bering Strait shows that the Bering Land Bridge connecting Asia to North America did not emerge until around 35,700 years ago, less than 10,000 years before the height of the last ice age (known as the Last Glacial Maximum).
“It means that more than 50 percent of the global ice volume at the Last Glacial Maximum grew after 46,000 years ago,” said Tamara Pico, assistant professor of Earth and planetary sciences at UC Santa Cruz and a corresponding author of the paper. “This is important for understanding the feedbacks between climate and ice sheets, because it implies that there was a substantial delay in the development of ice sheets after global temperatures dropped.”
Global sea levels drop during ice ages as more and more of Earth’s water gets locked up in massive ice sheets, but the timing of these processes has been hard to pin down. During the Last Glacial Maximum, which lasted from about 26,500 to 19,000 years ago, ice sheets covered large areas of North America. Dramatically lower sea levels uncovered a vast land area known as Beringia that extended from Siberia to Alaska and supported herds of horses, mammoths, and other Pleistocene fauna. As the ice sheets melted, the Bering Strait became flooded again around 13,000 to 11,000 years ago.
The new findings are interesting in relation to human migration because they shorten the time between the opening of the land bridge and the arrival of humans in the Americas. The timing of human migration into North America remains unresolved, but some studies suggest people may have lived in Beringia throughout the height of the ice age.
“People may have started going across as soon as the land bridge formed,” Pico said.
The new study used an analysis of nitrogen isotopes in seafloor sediments to determine when the Bering Strait was flooded during the past 46,000 years, allowing Pacific Ocean water to flow into the Arctic Ocean. First author Jesse Farmer at Princeton University led the isotope analysis, measuring nitrogen isotope ratios in the remains of marine plankton preserved in sediment cores collected from the seafloor at three locations in the western Arctic Ocean. Because of differences in the nitrogen composition of Pacific and Arctic waters, Farmer was able to identify a nitrogen isotope signature indicating when Pacific water flowed into the Arctic.
Pico, whose expertise is in sea level modeling, then compared Farmer’s results with sea level models based on different scenarios for the growth of the ice sheets.
“The exciting thing to me is that this provides a completely independent constraint on global sea level during this time period,” Pico said. “Some of the ice sheet histories that have been proposed differ by quite a lot, and we were able to look at what the predicted sea level would be at the Bering Strait and see which ones are consistent with the nitrogen data.”
The results support recent studies indicating that global sea levels were much higher prior to the Last Glacial Maximum than previous estimates had suggested, she said. Average global sea level during the Last Glacial Maximum was about 130 meters (425 feet) lower than today. The actual sea level at a particular site such as the Bering Strait, however, depends on factors such as the deformation of the Earth’s crust by the weight of the ice sheets.
“It’s like punching down on bread dough—the crust sinks under the ice and rises up around the edges,” Pico said. “Also, the ice sheets are so massive they have gravitational effects on the water. I model those processes to see how sea level would vary around the world and, in this case, to look at the Bering Strait.”
The findings imply a complicated relationship between climate and global ice volume and suggest new avenues for investigating the mechanisms underlying glacial cycles.
In addition to Pico and Farmer, the coauthors include Ona Underwood and Daniel Sigman at Princeton University; Rebecca Cleveland-Stout at the University of Washington; Julie Granger at the University of Connecticut; Thomas Cronin at the U.S. Geological Survey; and François Fripiat, Alfredo Martinez-Garcia, and Gerald Haug at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Germany. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation.
Congress has placed massive orders for weapons and equipment amid war in Ukraine and fears of aggression from other U.S. rivals, intensifying pressure on the defense industry to meet those orders.
Business is booming for contractors today, but they will have to manage some ongoing obstacles to production if they are to meet demand, experts told the DCNF.
“Congress has been leaning in this direction for several years, and it is the mood of the Washington consensus right now to throw money at defense,” Eugene Gholz, a professor at the University of Notre Dame and a former senior Pentagon official, told the DCNF.
Congress authorized a massive increase in spending on weapons and ammunition in 2023, signaling a willingness to continue providing defense contractors the funding they need to deliver on future Pentagon orders, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The Department Of Defense (DOD) would receive a 9% boost in defense spending, with some of the largest increases occurring in weapons budgets, in 2023 as part of Congress’ yearly funding bill, which allocates a total of $858 billion for defense. Concern that the U.S. lacks the capacity to both support Ukraine and deter China from attacking Taiwan have intensified as the U.S. continues to send billions in aid to Kyiv, but contractors will have to negotiate production challenges in order to supply what Congress and the White House believe they need, experts explained to the DCNF.
“This was not a ‘Christmas gift’ in the sense that defense industry pressure or an insider military-industrial complex led to the defense spending increases,” Eugene Gholz, a professor at the University of Notre Dame and a former senior Pentagon official, told the DCNF. “Congress has been leaning in this direction for several years, and it is the mood of the Washington consensus right now to throw money at defense.”
Since President Joe Biden submitted his initial funding request in March, Congressional appropriators estimated the industry would require an additional $1 billion to meet the same procurement thresholds. The National Defense Authorization Act and follow-on funding bill decreases the size of the U.S. army but adds funding for weapons, setting aside $162.2 billion for the defense industry, or roughly $17.2 billion more than Biden’s request, Inside Defense reported.
In addition, $17 billion of the $45 billion emergency financial assistance approved for Ukraine is destined for the defense industry.
“It’s not more money for the same stuff. It’s the DOD realizing we haven’t invested enough for years and now we have to catch up,” Maiya Clark, a senior research associate at the Heritage Foundation, told the DCNF.
The war in Ukraine has severely depleted U.S. and European weapons stockpiles, generating heightened demand to replenish those reserves, while countries are seeking to grow and modernize their capabilities to guard against the effects of Russia’s war and the increasingly belligerent China and North Korea. White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on Dec. 16 the Ukraine crisis had exposed existing vulnerabilities in the defense industrial base that would need to be addressed.
“The diversion of existing stocks of weapons and munitions to Ukraine and pandemic-related supply chain issues has exacerbated a sizeable backlog in the delivery of weapons already approved for sale to Taiwan, undermining the island’s readiness,” the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission recently found. The backlog of deliveries to Taiwan has reached $18.7 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal.
For the second year in a row, the Pentagon has clocked an average 4.3% budget increase year over year after factoring in inflation, compared to 1% for the years from 2015 and 2021, according to an analysis the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments completed for The New York Times and shared with the DCNF. Defense spending is approaching levels not seen since the height of the wars in Iraq and Syria in real dollars.
Most experts have labeled the UN Climate Change Conference, or COP27, a failure due to the lack of progress on commitments made during the COP26 meeting in 2021 and the absence of explicit agreements to phase out fossil fuels. More generally, because it relied on unanimous agreement from all parties, the COP process has come under fire as ineffective and untenable.
However, COP27 did result in one significant achievement: the developed economies of the world, including the US and the EU, finally acknowledged some responsibility for the “loss and damage” brought on by climate change, which was a crucial demand of many developing countries.
They decided, in the formal language of the conference’s final declaration, “to establish new finance structures for aiding developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change in reacting to loss and damage.” A special committee of twenty-four countries will decide the new fund’s financing, administration, and distribution. Towards the end of next year, they are expected to table their findings at the COP28 summit in the UAE.
This fund is undoubtedly a cause for celebration. But poorer countries must be cautious because they need assistance when catastrophic weather conditions wreak havoc on them year after year. They risk losing the war for climate justice if they succeed in this battle.
Pakistan, which had recently experienced terrible floods, took the initiative diplomatically in the weeks preceding the conference. It ensured that the cries of communities affected by floods could not be disregarded and that wealthy countries felt pressured to do more than just acknowledge the harm their historical emissions have caused.
Pakistan became the steadfast voice for the developing countries at COP27, speaking for all countries confronting climate danger as president of the G77. Unsurprisingly, there were attempts to split up developing countries. Pakistan deserves credit for keeping the group united by recognizing the particularities of each nation’s circumstances while continuously bringing up the shared goal— setting up a loss and damage fund— which would be advantageous to all.
As Meena Raman, director of Third World Network and an authority on the UN climate summits, said to The Guardian: “We have seen such divide-and-control efforts time and time again. But when the G77 remains strong, we get good outcomes; if they are divided, developing countries lose.”
The agreement on a loss and damage fund proves the effectiveness of climate diplomacy and the pressure on wealthy countries to supply outcomes. But to use that as a platform for climate justice, we must first understand what climate justice is. Otherwise, true climate justice will always remain a conundrum, and the larger discussion will now focus on the issue of culpability and duty. And that, in turn, could dramatically alter the motivations of the key protagonists
Recall that John Kerry, the top climate change ambassador for the USA, said that a fund of this nature “simply isn’t happening.” Considering this hurdle, the creation of the fund after COP27 is an impressive diplomatic accomplishment.
But without a justification that is helpful to most people worldwide, such victories are insufficient. However, the G77’s reaction to the fund’s statement is cause for concern. Ironically, its message— “Loss and damage is not charity; it’s about climate justice“— pulled the rug out from under those who have been fighting the climate justice battle for years.
Let us be clear: a fund to compensate for losses and damages is not charity, and it cannot ever, even in the remotest sense, but what about climate justice? Money cannot replace the lives and livelihoods that have been lost. By equating the two, wealthy countries were given a simple exit and one they were willing to take.
This debate with those who successfully managed developing country diplomacy at COP27 goes beyond philosophical differences. This situation has significant practical ramifications. The only idea for such an effort that wealthy countries would accept was the loss and damage fund, which was adopted with a fine print that let them off the hook for responsibility and accountability. COP27 focused appropriately on those who were harmed while turning a blind eye to those who were inflicting it. Wealthy countries made the year’s biggest agreement, but this is not justice at all.
If the growing frequency and intensity of extreme weather are caused by climate change, which is believed to be the result of past and present emissions. It implies that individuals responsible for the emissions are responsible for the flooding this year in Pakistan and the advancing desertification in North Africa.
But who exactly is to be blamed? The industrialized world’s governments have admitted that they share some blame. However, the businesses that created, distributed, and profited from the goods that caused the emissions should also be held accountable.
There will undoubtedly be hot discussions over it. However, in theory, the parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change have let the genie out of the bottle by merely taking responsibility for the global costs of climate change and paying little attention to the genuine offenders. This fund empowers them to wreck the earth as much as they like in return for offering to cover the costs after the destruction. They are not even obliged to make the concrete commitments that`have long distinguished COP events.
In essence, wealthy countries packaged the dollar as climate justice and sold it to underdeveloped and sorely unheard countries. Ronald Reagan, a former US president, reportedly said, “A hungry child knows no politics.”
There is another risk too. According to the agreements made at COP27, a fund would be established to help poor countries that are “especially susceptible to climate change.” Climate vulnerability cannot be measured with any degree of objectivity, and no institution has the right to judge who deserves justice more than others. Including this stipulation for receiving the cash might compel the countries to pretend to be the most vulnerable to climate change.
Conclusively, the agreement on a loss and damage fund proves the effectiveness of climate diplomacy and the pressure on wealthy countries to supply outcomes. But to use that as a platform for climate justice, we must first understand what climate justice is. Otherwise, true climate justice will always remain a conundrum, and the larger discussion will now focus on the issue of culpability and duty. And that, in turn, could dramatically alter the motivations of the key protagonists.
